MoMA | press | Releases | 2000 | Oliver Stone Receives Mid-Career Retrospective at the ... Page 1 of 7 OLIVER STONE RECEIVES MID-CAREER RETROSPECTIVE AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART For Immediate Release August 2000 Oliver Stone, Filmmaker September 14–28, 2000 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1 The Museum of Modern Art presents a mid-career retrospective of Oliver Stone from September 14 to 28, 2000. Oliver Stone, Filmmaker includes mint 35mm prints of all 14 feature-length films—from the premiere of the Director’s Cut of his most recent film, Any Given Sunday (1999), to a newly struck copy of his first film, Seizure (1974). All films will be shown in the Museum’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1. Oliver Stone, Filmmaker was organized by Laurence Kardish, Senior Curator, Department of Film and Video. Perhaps the most audacious and least complacent writer/director/producer working today, Stone obliges audiences to engage with his films. His works initiate social arguments, unsettle the status quo, and spiritedly posit fresh perspectives on recent history and the commonweal. Mr. Kardish states, "Boldly conceived and brilliantly cast, Stone’s films are deeply disquieting. They move with a breathtaking velocity, propelled by astonishing shots. His cinema proves that Hollywood, given a brave and determined talent, can sustain a filmmaker of fierce independence whose works are at once viscerally entertaining and intellectually provocative." Stone was born in New York City in 1946. He went to Vietnam in 1965 as a teacher of English, history, and mathematics in the Chinese Cholon district of Saigon. He left that post and after a stint as a "wiper" in the American Merchant Marine, returned to the United States, then traveled to Mexico where he wrote the novel, A Child’s Night Dream (St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Stone then volunteered for the draft and served in the U.S. Infantry in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. Decorated for valor, he returned from Vietnam and studied filmmaking at New York University. There he completed the film short based on his homecoming, Last Year in Vietnam (1969), which is included in this exhibition. http://www.moma.org/about_moma/press/2000/stone_9_13_00.html 2/3/2009 MoMA | press | Releases | 2000 | Oliver Stone Receives Mid-Career Retrospective at the ... Page 2 of 7 Stone’s military experiences and the experiences of others in Vietnam informed the trilogy he directed over six years—Platoon (1986), Born on the Fourth of July (1989) (both of which won Stone an Academy Award, a Directors Guild of America Award, and a Golden Globe for Best Director), and Heaven and Earth (1993). Although Platoon brought Stone national celebrity, it was Stone’s third feature, Salvador, released earlier that same year, that first drew serious critical attention to the filmmaker. Excess in American life forms the basis for Stone’s fictions, whether satiric or melodramatic, and the narratives of Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Natural Born Killers (1994), and Any Given Sunday (1999) reflect current events so acutely that their narratives seem like kinetic documentaries. In contrast, JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995), Stone’s investigations into historical record—the assassination of one president and the destiny of another—pose so many questions they render truth mutable. Stone’s films provoke passionate debate among the public and critics alike. JFK, for which he received a Golden Globe for Best Director, sparked a national dialogue about the Kennedy assassination. This controversy prompted then President George Bush to pass a bill to open millions of pages of government documents that had been sealed for decades—an unprecedented government reaction to a motion picture. Oliver Stone, Filmmaker is a part of the exhibition Open Ends which celebrates the extraordinary richness of MoMA’s holdings in art since 1960. Along with familiar masterworks by some of the most influential artists of the past 40 years, Open Ends presents an impressive number of recently acquired works by emerging artists, reaffirming MoMA’s ongoing commitment to contemporary creativity. In many respects, Open Ends offers a preview of the fresh emphasis on contemporary art anticipated in the installation of MoMA’s new building, scheduled to be completed in 2004. The Museum of Modern Art acknowledges the kind cooperation of Arthur Manson in making this exhibition possible. Oliver Stone, Filmmaker Screening Schedule: Thursday, September 14, 6:00 p.m.; Saturday, September 16, 2:00 p.m. Salvador . 1986. USA/Great Britain. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by Stone and Richard Boyle. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by Claire Simpson. Music by Georges Delerue. With James Woods, James Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage, Elpedia Carrillo, Tony Plana. A drama about the moral education of a cynic, Salvador remains one of the rare American narratives about the catastrophic nature of politics in Central America. 123 min. Preceded by Stone’s student film, Last Year in Vietnam. 1969. USA. 10 min. (Print courtesy New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television.). Friday, September 15, 2:30 p.m.; Sunday, September 17, 5:00 p.m. http://www.moma.org/about_moma/press/2000/stone_9_13_00.html 2/3/2009 MoMA | press | Releases | 2000 | Oliver Stone Receives Mid-Career Retrospective at the ... Page 3 of 7 The Hand . 1981. USA. Written and directed by Oliver Stone. Based on the book The Lizard’s Tail by Marc Brandel. Cinematography by King Baggot. Edited by Richard Marks. Music by James Horner. Special Effects Consultant: Carlo Rambaldi. With Michael Caine, Andrea Marcovicci, Annie McEnroe, Bruce McGrill, Viveca Lindfors, Rosemary Murphy. In the seven years between his first film and this, his second, Stone wrote about a dozen screenplays, one of which, Midnight Express, won him an Academy Award for Best Screenplay (Based on material from Another Medium). Like the writer in Seizure, the leading character of The Hand is an artist—this time a cartoonist—surprised and distressed by a failing marriage. In an accident he literally loses his drawing hand, and nasty things begin to happen. Vincent Canby in The New York Times wrote that the film was "about anger so profound that it goes unrecognized." 104 min. Friday, September 15, 6:00 p.m.; Monday, September 18, 2:30 p.m. Talk Radio . 1988. USA. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by Eric Bogosian and Stone. Adapted from the play of the same name created by Bogosian and Tad Savinar, and from the book Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg by Stephen Singular. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by David Brenner. With Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, John C. McGinley, Alec Baldwin, John Pankow. After Wall Street, Stone chose to work on a "small, contained" feature by collaborating with Eric Bogosian on Talk Radio, the play Bogosian performed on stage in 1985. They created a chamber biography of Barry Champlain, a Jewish Dallas talk show host whose dark celebrity resides in his merciless responses to those who call into his program. Talk Radio was suggested by the 1984 murder of Denver radio personality Alan Berg by a white supremacist group. 110 min. Friday, September 15, 8:15 p.m.; Sunday, September 17, 2:00 p.m. Seizure . 1974. USA/Canada. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by Edward Mann and Stone. Cinematography by Roger Racine. Edited by Nobuko Oganesoff and Stone. With Jonathan Frid, Martine Beswick, Joe Sirola, Christina Pickles, Herve Villechaize, Anne Meacham. Stone’s first feature, made in Canada, is about a writer whose bad luck it is to see his horrid characters materialize. 93 min. Saturday, September 16, 5:00 p.m.; Tuesday, September 19, 2:30 p.m. Wall Street . 1987. USA. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by Stanley Weiser and Stone. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by Claire Simpson. Music by Stewart Copeland. With Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Hal Holbrook, Terence Stamp, Martin Sheen. Stone’s father, Louis, who worked on Wall Street most of his life, introduced Oliver to "many people of all value systems, creeds, and greeds." The driving force of Wall Street is one of Stone’s most seductive creations—the corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Douglas), a man whose rapaciousness is so smooth and whose ideas so eloquent, that he became, in spite of his heartlessness, http://www.moma.org/about_moma/press/2000/stone_9_13_00.html 2/3/2009 MoMA | press | Releases | 2000 | Oliver Stone Receives Mid-Career Retrospective at the ... Page 4 of 7 an emblem for American business. 120 min. Monday, September 18, 6:00 p.m.; Thursday, September 21, 2:30 p.m. The Doors . 1991. USA. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by J. Randal Johnson and Stone. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by David Brenner and Joe Hutshing. Music by The Doors. With Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kevin Dillon, Kathleen Quinlan, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley. Stephen Schiff mused in The New Yorker that The Doors was a personal film that allowed Stone to exorcise "a Morrison-like narcissism, pursuing his own demons and death, and attempting himself to ‘break on through to the other side.’" Perhaps The Doors is a personal film, but it is also the chronicle of an extraordinary and self-destructing personality, Jim Morrison, and the tumultuous 1960s in which he lived. 135 min. Tuesday, September 19, 6:00 p.m.; Sunday, September 24, 2:00 p.m. U-Turn . 1997. USA. Directed by Oliver Stone. Screenplay by John Ridley, based on his book Stray Dogs. Cinematography by Robert Richardson. Edited by Hank Corwin and Thomas J. Nordberg. Music by Ennio Morricone. With Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Claire Danes, Joaquin Phoenix. With an unusual color palette and a nod to Native American wisdom, U-Turn is Stone’s comic riff on film noir.